Engineering drawings are widely used to ensure that articles are fabricated to known specifications. Thus, a draftsman makes a scale drawing of an article to be manufactured. The drawing, when properly drafted, provides a suitable tool for communicating to manufacturing personnel the exact nature, and sometimes the standards to be used, in fabricating the article or articles represented by the drawing.
Manufacturing personnel use the drawing as the basis from which the article is manufactured. Thus, manufacturing personnel scale the drawing in order to ascertain general size, shape, angles radii, and the like, which information is needed to create that particular something which is represented by the drawing.
Such drawings can be used to represent a wide variety of subjects including, without limitation, chemical structures, electrical circuits, industrial goods, transportation goods, construction projects such as roads, bridges, and buildings, and consumer goods and the like.
In view of the fact that such engineering drawings are used to ensure proper sizing, shape, materials, and the like, creating such drawings is an exacting task requiring a high level of skill, and suitable engineering tools.
Various tools and instruments, hereinafter collectively referred to as "instruments," are available to assist the draftsman in creating engineering drawings. For example, such tools and instruments as a T-square, a protractor, one or more scales, a ruler, and one or more triangles may be utilized in the completion of a single drawing.
Similarly, manufacturing and like personnel read and interpret such drawings in order to make, repair, or use, etc. the article or project represented by the drawing. Just as the draftsman must be precise in creating the drawing, so must the user be precise in interpreting the drawing. Accordingly, just as the draftsman uses a variety of tools and instruments in creating the drawing, so does the user also utilize a variety of tools and instruments in interpreting the drawing.
It is conventionally known for a given craftsperson to employ a plurality of tools and instruments, such as those described above, whether for creating a single drawing or for interpreting a single drawing. Namely, it is common to use a variety of tools and/or instruments in either the creation or the interpretation of any one drawing. Where several tools and/or instruments may be required for creating or interpreting a given drawing, the larger the number of tools and/or instruments desired to be used, the greater the probability that at least one of such tools and instruments will be misplaced, broken, be in use by another worker, or otherwise unavailable, whereby the work may be stopped or truncated, or the work may be done without use of one or more of the proper tools and instruments. If a needed tool or instrument is not available, and the work is done without the tool, e.g. in order to meet a deadline, those checks and balances are lost, which checks and balances generally accompany use of the proper tools, along with corresponding assurance of the quality of the work.
In view of the wide variety of tools and instruments typically used to create and/or interpret engineering drawings, it is desirable to provide a multi-function engineering instrument or tool, which can replace multiple conventional engineering instruments or tools.
The present invention provides an engineering instrument incorporating therein a plurality of drafting and interpreting capabilities, obviating the need for certain combinations of the conventionally available drafting and engineering tools, in addition to providing a number of function combinations never before available in a single engineering instrument.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide a multifunctional see-thru engineering instrument useful in performing a variety of drafting, scaling, and other engineering tasks.
It is another object of the invention to provide a multifunctional see-thru engineering instrument which, by virtue of combined length and width of such instrument, can perform the functions of a T-square, thus eliminating the need to work off the edge of a drafting table or the like.
It is still another object of the invention to provide a see-thru engineering instrument wherein one or more lines in the body of the instrument can be used as reference lines for drawing parallel lines.
It is yet another object of the invention to provide, in such instrument, a protractor having an origin at an edge of such engineering instrument, and no open arc about the angle markings described by the protractor.
It is a further object of the invention to provide at least one reference line extending at an angle of 45 degrees to a side edge of such engineering instrument.
It is yet a further object of the invention to provide up to four scales in association with one or more edges of such engineering instrument wherein the measuring scales have a corresponding number of scale sizes, for making measurements on drawings drawn to respective such scale sizes.
Another object of the invention is to provide a see-thru engineering instrument having markings defining longitudinal reference lines disposed inwardly of the edges of the instrument.